there are no strangers here
by Fiercest
Summary: They're still just children. Rookie 9 introspect.


**For the 31_days October 3****rd**** prompt "There are no strangers under sakura blossoms."**

**I seem to simply spew nonsense. I wrote something at three in the morning yesterday, thought it was brilliant and posted it. I have yet to reread it in y'know a coherent state of mind…I'm sort of afraid to, to be completely honest.**

--

there are no strangers here

--

They are together.

They are withered and not quite old, and blinded by the flash of their lives passing while they seem to remain dizzyingly stagnant.

These are children who never quite grew up, but did. They did it way too fast too. Moments flashed likely lightning, gone in an instant and then never striking again in quite the same place. But there are exceptions as there are to every rule. Perhaps the village hidden within the leaves that cloak them, in the land of Fire, _they_ can be that exception.

But only a handful of them have ever been able to understand metaphors so they think that maybe its better that they don't anyway.

It's funny, they realize, that they have been called children all their lives. And yet, nearly as long _[but perhaps not because their lives haven't exactly been especially _longshortlong_] _they have held the power to take a life, some to give one back as well. Their hands have been stained so long red that most don't remember them being any different.

_[How long have we been this way-?]_

It's also strange, they know. That somehow the gory images that make up their lives seem to fall away from their places pinned to their minds and flutter to the floor for just a little while when the timing is right, and lightning strikes, and the sun is just somehow shining just for them. When they are all together.

Today it is amidst war as it usually is _[a personal war, an inner war, a civil war, a friendly war-_istheresuchathing_?- or a great war of battles and blood and lost souls driven.] _They are breathing, on a time out, a break, the world is suddenly silent outside of this enclosure, this haven for the fighting, it is a rare moment in these horrid, scary scary times that seem to have always been.

Somehow they are together.

And there is laughter and smiles, there is teasing and happy and some strange sort of not-quite-beauty. There is a love and friendship and a thread of kinship sewn into each and everyone of their souls, pulled so tight that they are bound too close to be snipped away.

There is _eight-eleven-fifteen-seventeen_ of them they are forever expanding, growing, not quite losing_ [_lies _they think. Things they tell themselves because they must.]_ and they find respite in company.

But pain is pain and it doesn't go away just because you ask nicely. You have to barter your soul and beg and plead and somewhere in all of this there is a lot of pretending going on, some more than others they suspect.

_[There is always a _they_ and _we_ in these circumstances. And they just so happen to be both.]_

So keeping with tradition- because really, who are they to stray from the norm? They are but a band of simple misfit adult-children, _waitingwaitingwaiting_ for something amazing –when he stumbles into their bubble of protection, of safety and of quiet not-quite-laughter; holding the head of their kage by black strands of the brittle hair of-

_No_.

There is nothing to be said for this because it is just so impossibly unfortunate and amazing and strange and oh-so-charmingly _him_ to make such an entrance.

There is overwhelming pain in that moment. Because he is speaking and some of the _Them_, become a _He_ and _She_ and _He_ again for simply a moment, just a moment long enough for the they not to know quite yet what must be done.

Because once he was a part of _He_ and _She_ and _He_ and just as stitched into their _Them_ and _We_ as the rest.

But there is only _Traitor_ now.

There is an apology on his lips and they can all tell that it will choke him with its weight to even try to voice these sorries and maybes and possibilities of forgiveness. And really it is to only three of them that it matters the world and life and light and sun and moon, stars and _life again_ to.

He places the head on the earth, not careful or caring, but his bloodless hands surprise them with he reaches them up, palms facing them in peace.

"You are free," he says, like he did it for them. He didn't and they think that perhaps he doesn't know that that is the way he said it _[but then again there is a very small and quiet and so so unlikely maybe, that he _might have_. Just a little bit.]_

Moments ago, before he'd spoken he had been a stranger to them all. Years that pass without words do more damage that moments with.

But the wind is blowing, the air is pleasantly warm. There is a feast of not-quite-but-almost stale bread, cheese, water and friends. The smell of the forest is strong and familiar in their lungs and reminding them _what they are protecting_. There is a cherry blossom tree to the side, and the sway of blossoms and the whirlwind they create around them is not-quite-but-could-be beautiful.

There is nothing left to be said really. And the _He_ and _She_ and _He_ finish their moment and they are _They_ and _We_ and somehow….so is _He_.

_Becausebecausebecause_ they know nothing else but the acceptance of comrades.

And in moments they know him again too, because _there is no other option_.

There are no strangers here, in this bubble of a moment before the end of the world.

There are only _Them_ and food, laughter and tears.

And cherry blossoms.


End file.
